CHANGING THE CHOCOLATE INDUSTRY FOR GOOD, ONE BITE AT A TIME.

 Leading female pastry chef, and her celebrity chef partner, launch premium chocolate brand with ethics at the core.

 Cartografie launches its first independent East London chocolate studio and online shop

Cartografie is a brand-new chocolate company with a conscience; not only does it produce Michelin-star quality handmade single origin chocolates, it also cares deeply about sustainability, biodiversity, and ethics.

Amidst the 2020 summer of Lockdown 1.0, Kae Shibata, ex-Pastry Chef at The Ritz, and Sven-Hanson Britt, Winner of Masterchef The Professionals – The Rematch 2019, found that the restaurant industry came to a grinding halt and they were both left without jobs.

With a passion for premium chocolate and a desire to change the industry for the better, they began sourcing the very best cocoa beans and produced boxes of beautifully handcrafted pralines and bon-bons and sold them through their social media platforms. Knowing too well the disastrous effects the chocolate industry has had on the environment and the people of the cocoa origin countries, they made it their mission to only source from ethically-minded suppliers who could guarantee a level of provenance and traceability that matched their ethos. They sold out every single batch and the positive feedback kept rolling in.

Daniela Nunzi-Mihranian, Founder and Executive Creative Director of the award-winning design agency Studio Minerva, tasted the products and spotted an opportunity to create a powerful brand with meaning. Daniela’s unrivalled talent for creating ‘purposeful and beautiful’ design combined with Sven and Kae’s world-class products, resulted in the co-creation of Cartografie – an ethical and premium chocolate brand.

As cartographers of taste, the team are producing exquisite chocolate stories for a truly transportive experience. They believe that ‘what grows together, goes together’ and are venturing to uncharted territories of taste, sourcing the finest ingredients from the 20 degrees either side of the equator  where cocoa beans ripen. They are also dedicated to fighting the existential crisis within the industry; every-day commodity chocolate on our supermarket shelves often has links with slavery, child labour and extortion and macro-environmental issues including deforestation and destruction of biodiversity of important cocoa growing ecosystems. Further to this, there is real risk to cocoa varieties losing the rare and unique flavours they contain because of choices to rip up heritage varieties in place of easier to grow or faster growing crops. Proudly a zero-food waste company, Cartografie is committed to encouraging biodiversity, supporting equality, eliminating food waste and drastically cutting down their carbon footprint through their recipes and actions. The founders pledge to limit their use of anything non-recyclable or biodegradable in their packaging, processing and shop, and consciously only work with farmers and suppliers who fit their ethos of food production.

Every Cartografie product is made by Kae and her team at their chocolate studio at London City Island, where people can witness the chocolate being handcrafted and purchase there and then, literally fresh from the expert chocolatiers. Unlike competitors, Cartografie’s focus is not on bean to bar, instead they bring in a delicious, established, single-origin couverture and turn it into the perfect box of chocolates.

Their portfolio includes the Purity range; a selection of wafer-thin discs with a touch of sea salt made from their single origin couverture and their Cartografie range; a signature selection of filled handmade chocolates flavoured with their unique water based ganaches and caramels. Having access to the world’s best couvertures means their flavours are as diverse and exciting as the various countries they source from.

Kae Shibata, Co-Founder and Master Chocolatier of Cartografie, says: “Our goal is to offer ethically minded consumers, who care about the provenance and sustainability of produce, the opportunity to enjoy beautiful and delicious chocolates that have a positive effect on all of the above issues. We’re a family company and if we want to pass this planet onto our children then we need to leave it in a better way than when we found it.”

Products can be purchased at www.cartografiechocolate.com or visit @cartografiechocolate on Instagram. Prices: Purity range: Box of 4 – £9 / Box of 8 – £14. Cartografie range: Box of 4 – £16 / Box of 8 – £24.